Oral Answers to Questions

Amy Callaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

6. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Scottish Government’s publication entitled “Scotland’s Right to Choose”.

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

7. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Scottish Government’s publication entitled “Scotland’s Right to Choose”.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

9. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Scottish Government’s publication entitled “Scotland’s Right to Choose”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jack]

What we are respecting is the democratic outcome of referendums, which the SNP does not respect. The referendum in 2016 was a United Kingdom referendum, and we voted to leave the European Union. We are respecting that. Under the Sewel convention, we have provision for what is known as “not normal”. This is a constitutional matter. Constitutional matters are reserved, and they are not normally under the remit of the Scottish Parliament. We are delivering what the 2016 referendum requested us to deliver.

[Amy Callaghan]

This Tory Government are claiming that their 43% of the vote in the last general election provides them with an overwhelming mandate to implement Brexit. Can the Secretary of State therefore explain the absolutely blinding contradiction of his own position when he says that the 45% vote for the SNP, providing 80% of Scottish seats in this very House, does not equate to a mandate for the people of Scotland to choose our own future?

[Mr Jack]

It was a referendum three years ago. We are speaking for the majority of Scots. The majority of voters voted in 2016 to leave the European Union. We are respecting that decision, whereas the SNP is not respecting it and wants to tear up the United Kingdom.